Easter Sunrise Service canceled

Tuesday

Mar 8, 2016 at 4:07 PMMar 9, 2016 at 11:09 PM

Roger Phillips Record Staff Writer @rphillipsblog

STOCKTON — There will be no Easter Sunrise Service in downtown Stockton later this month, a tradition whose demise was set in motion earlier this year when an errant invitation was sent to a predominantly LGBT church.

The Stockton Leadership Foundation made the decision to cancel the service Monday, confirmed the Rev. Bud Locke, who heads the nonprofit that organized the Sunrise Service. This year’s 17th Sunrise Service would have been March 27.

Locke could not be reached for further comment Tuesday. But Jim Reid, a foundation board member and Stockton’s former senior police chaplain until his recent firing, said he agreed with the cancellation. Reid said the recent LGBT controversy would have created a “media frenzy” at this year’s service.

“I felt it would defeat the purpose of having it,” Reid said. “I didn’t think it would bring glory and honor to God. I was in favor of canceling.”

The Rev. Terri Miller of 70-member Valley Ministries, which received the mistaken invitation to the Sunrise Service in late January, said Locke called her Monday night to inform her of the decision.

“Obviously there are people in the Stockton Leadership Foundation that have more power and influence and as a whole they don’t want to stand for Christians like me,” Miller said.

“It’s just disheartening to me that here these folks claim to be Christians … and are squandering this opportunity because of some perceived differences instead of uniting under the banner of what this day is supposed to mean.”

The sequence of events that led to the cancellation began in late January when Reid invited Miller and Valley Ministries to attend the Sunrise Service.

Soon thereafter, though, Reid wrote back to Miller and said that although her congregation could attend, “we do not feel it would be appropriate to have you sitting on the platform with the pastors as we are diametrically different in our view of scripture when it comes to homosexuality.”

Angered, Miller went public with Reid’s email.

Locke initially "re-invited her (Miller) with full participation” in the services. And Reid later was fired by the Stockton Police Chaplaincy over his use of his city of Stockton email address to send the Sunrise Service messages to Miller.

“It makes me very sad — very, very sad,” Reid said Tuesday of the cancellation. “But I’m not the one who chose to involve all the media. That was not my choice at all.”

Asked if he was blaming Miller for the cancellation, Reid said, “You can take that answer however you want. But I was not the one.”

Nicholas Hatten, director of the San Joaquin Pride Center, said Reid is entitled to his religious beliefs but criticized the Stockton Leadership Foundation for canceling the upcoming service.

“This struggle they are going through should be a test of their resolve and their faith,” Hatten said. “For them to just walk away, it’s odd.”

The Stockton Leadership Foundation’s written cancellation notice said the “transforming message” at the Sunrise Service would have been “overshadowed” this year “as a result of the well-publicized clergy invitations.”

“Now the discussions throughout our city and in our publications do not emphasize the core message of Easter — Jesus’ resurrection,” the message added.

Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, said she is hoping recent events ultimately will result in social progress.

“Maybe this will be a way for a more inclusive style of Sunrise Service to come from this,” Eggman said.

— Contact reporter Roger Phillips at (209) 546-8299 or rphillips@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/phillipsblog and on Twitter @rphillipsblog.